Special thanks to: Jo Abbott (Trial Search Coordinator of the Cochrane Developmental, Psychosocial and Learning Problems Group) for developing and conducting the search with JD; Julie Millener (Research Secretary of the CDPLPG) for coordinating the grey literature search and for support throughout; Maja Frederikson (IMS, Sweden) for conducting searches of Swedish databases; Anette Fomsgaard (Nordic Campbell Center, Denmark) for conducting searches of Danish databases; and Charlotte Couldrey for assistance retrieving articles. We thank Celia Almeida and Katinka Hodin for translating documents.

Input from a reference group chaired by Haluk Soydan and organised by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) has been invaluable. Parts of this review dealing with personal assistance users, government policy, law, and service administration have been shaped by advice from Peter Brusen, Katarina Carlsson, Ulla Clevnert, Johan Glad, Carina Gustafsson, Kerstin Gynnerstedt, Elaine Johansson, Inger Ljung, Anders Printz, Lydia Springer and Karin Tengvald.

Thanks to Georgia Salanti (Cambridge University) for useful comments on the protocol in draft and to David Gordon (Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, University of Bristol) for helping to identify background information.

Finally, thanks to Geraldine Macdonald (Coordinating Editor of CDPLPG), Jeff Valentine (Campbell Collaboration Methods Group) and anonymous peer reviewers for their feedback and support.